Reference no: EM132718488

Question - An airline has been tasked with repatriating SA citizens who are currently stranded in Europe due to the Covid 19 crisis. The airline has been given a budget of R3.5 million rands by donors for fuel to transport 12 000 passengers. The airline has 2 types of aircraft, a large and smaller one. The fuel costs for a return flight are R145 000 and R85 000 respectively. The labour hours for each return flight are 12 hours for the large plane and 8 for the small with a total of 300 hours budgeted for the month. (The labour budget is not part of the fuel budget). The large plane can transport 650 passengers while the smaller one can transport 350 passengers. Due to the urgency of the matter, each type of plane must make at least 10 trips to Europe.

You are required to use Solver on excel to answer the questions that follow.

1. How many return trips should each type of aircraft make in order to bring home the 12 000 passengers while minimizing fuel costs and the hours for the month?

2. How much of the fuel budget would not be used?

3. How many crew hours would be left for the month?

4. Before any flights have embarked on the mission, it has been discovered that an additional 1500 SA citizens have indicated their desire to return home. How many trips would be required now given this increase in passenger numbers?

5. How much of the fuel budget would not be spent?

6. Given that 13500 passengers need to be transported and that the government would like to substitute the smaller plane for a medium sized plane that can carry 450 passengers with fuel costs of R100 000 per return flight. Labour hours would be the same as the small aircraft.

7. How many flights would be taken then by the large and medium aircrafts? (Assume no restriction on the number of flights each aircraft can make)

8. How much of the fuel budget would remain unused?